Last Second Chance
by Liet Syndrome
Summary: What if the Eleventh Doctor kept going back before being trapped behind the cracks in time? What if he went back to the night of his regeneration and saved the Master's life? Ten and the Master, with adventures and travels galore. Eventual Ten/Master.
1. Prologue: Time Can Be Rewritten

**Hello everyone! Welcome to our lovely collab fic. I'm Rhia and sitting in the virtual armchair next to me is Mandy, who says hello as well. Here on FFNet we go by –Rhiannon –Onyx Moon and phantomforever42. (And no, Rhia isn't my real name. *****winks*) **

**This is my first time writing for this fandom, but Mandy does it all the time so hopefully people won't eat us. Kidding! Kidding! *holds up hands* You're all too nice for that~ **

**So anyway, we don't own Doctor Who and all that. Although I do own a sonic screwdriver. And a bow tie. And seasons two through five of New Who. And Mandy owns a TARDIS mug and a t-shirt that says 'waiting for a mad man with a box.' (And she's made two Dalek birthday cakes to date.) **

**Oh, wait, you wanted warnings? Oh yeah! We have watched a few episodes of old!Who (together) and tend to reference them occasionally. It's not really important to have watched the episodes though.**

**We're (well, Rhia is anyway. Mandy is somewhat) obsessed with anime, too, and Rhia has a tendency to make the Master tsundere. And occasionally moe. Actually, she makes almost everyone moe at times. And, um, if you don't know what those mean… go look them up? **

**^-^ And enjoy!**

The Doctor closed his eyes tightly and prepared to meet the inevitable end as the Pandorica hurtled towards his exploding TARDIS. He realized that his ship must have been in terrible pain and felt a pang for her even as he was flung into the explosion she had caused.

He gritted his teeth as he felt the Pandorica enter the heart of the TARDIS, felt it explode, felt himself hurtling forward. _Goodbye_, he thought, but who he was saying this to, he could not have told you.

XxXxXxXx

He woke several seconds later on the floor of the TARDIS.

"So, I escaped then. Love it when I do that," he said, looking around. He was in his TARDIS but it was a memory from weeks ago, when he took Amy to Space Florida. It was a living, breathing memory that he was standing and watching.

Slowly, he began to realize that he was rewinding through his life, unseen but hearable. First, he shouted to Amy, trying desperately to make her hear him, hoping to hang onto his life as it was now but she never realized whose voice it was that kept saying her name.

The Doctor felt Time slipping through his fingers and his life literally flashed before his eyes as he went back to the night of his regeneration, the night his faithful Amy had waited. He bid Amelia goodbye.

He would miss his mad, impossible Amy Pond; partner in crime and crime-fighting, his best friend, the girl who had saved him in so many ways.

He felt himself rewinding again and saw himself saying goodbye to Rose one last time. The Doctor felt a twinge of sorrow as he watched her run up the stairs and away from his former self. He would miss Rose as well, although his regeneration had given him a sense of distance from the pain his tenth self had felt at losing the blonde girl.

The rewind began again and he found himself in the room with the glass roof, watching his tenth regeneration point a gun at the Master. "Get out of the way," he heard himself say. A grin spread across the Master's face and he moved away.

Time seemed literally to slow for a minute. The Time Lock opened and he could see the Master push him out of the way. For once, the Doctor acted impulsively; in the confusion as the Master began to fall into the Time Lock, he ran forward, grabbing the Master around the middle and pulling him out of the way.

He pushed and pulled the Master (who appeared to be unconscious, having expended nearly all of his remaining life force pushing Rassilon back into the Time War) into the isolation chamber, releasing Wilf. A light flashed round the room as the Time Lock closed and he held onto the Master tightly, hoping it wasn't too late to save him.

The Time Lock closed with a blinding flash and as the noise faded, the Doctor could hear the yells and cheers coming from outside the building. "That great, bloody planet," he could hear a man's voice shout, "it's just gone!"

The eleventh Doctor felt his timeline twist and bend, new memories forcing their way into his mind. The Master and his tenth self, laughing, running, shouting, fighting and - Oh. The Doctor smiled. He looked forward to it. Er, backward.

He looked over to see his former self, on his hands and knees, coughing and choking out, "I'm alive, I'm still alive." The Doctor clambered to his feet and tapped on the glass wall of the chamber, four times. The tenth Doctor turned, eyes slightly unfocused, to where Eleven and the Master were trapped in the isolation chamber.

"What?" the older man (wellll, technically younger. But not physically, just in terms of memory) said, bewildered. "Please," Eleven almost begged, remembering that he couldn't be seen. "Get him out, help him or he's going to die soon, his life force is burning up quickly."

The tenth Doctor looked confused for a moment before his eyes focused on the Master, lying unconscious on the floor of the isolation chamber and the readings on the machines next to it. Realizing that the chamber was about to flood with radiation, he pushed himself to his feet and almost ran into the chamber, pressing the button to release the Master and (though he didn't know this) his future self.

Eleven reflected on how he hadn't even given a second thought to the danger he had been in, driven only by his need to save the one person he had left. He pulled the unconscious man out of the chamber. He watched himself writhe in pain as he absorbed the radiation, horrified but now knowing exactly what to do.

He gently laid the Master on the floor just a few feet from the isolation chamber and walked over to the crack in the corner of the room that he hadn't noticed (or had passed off as another byproduct of the sound beating that the mansion had taken) in his previous regeneration.

He let the crack open up and he stepped inside. Alone with his memories for all eternity? That would be torture to anyone but the Doctor because no one had memories quite like his.

He thought of Rose, the Bad Wolf, who he had lost to the void and then to himself.

He remembered Martha, the doctor who healed the world with a single word and Donna, the temp who became so much more.

He remembered Jack Harkness, the face of Boe and the Casanova of the 51st century. (Hang on, hadn't he been with the Time Agency? And hadn't portraits of Casanova looked suspiciously like one Captain Jack Harkness? ...Oh dear...)

He thought of River Song, the woman who studied the past but knew his future, Amy and Rory, the ones who waited and the Master, whose time with him was happening, was about to happen and had already happened.

The eleventh Doctor stood in the darkness of the void, remembering, and then heard a voice say, "Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue." He smiled. Well, maybe there were more memories to make yet.

XxXxXxXx

The tenth Doctor stood and staggered out of his side of the isolation chamber, feeling the regeneration energy starting to flow through his body, warm and healing. He saw the Master and, realizing once again what was happening, swept him up into his arms honeymoon-style and almost ran to the place where he had left the TARDIS.

He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and synced the TARDIS with his timestream again, snapping his fingers to open the door and dragging the Master inside. He carried the Master up the stairs, nearly to the console before his legs gave out and he dropped to his knees.

The Doctor somehow managed to push the Master away before the energy flooded through him, bursting out of his skin as his body healed and almost began to change... Through the fire in his brain he could hear only one thought.

_Have to... save... him..._ Without quite knowing why he was doing it, he turned in the direction of the Master and let the energy flow out of him and into his dying friend. He gasped and looked down at his hands. They were the same as ever. He found the nearest reflective surface and saw the same spiky hair, same wide brown eyes.

Now that the energy had stopped blazing through him, almost stopping all coherent thought, he began to regain a sense of self and to remember what was happening to the pair of them.

He watched as the regeneration energy healed his old friend, watched life come back into his face. The Master's eyes opened and he saw the confusion and fright in them. The Doctor put a hand gently on the Master's face. "It's - it's fine, everything's alright," he murmured, slurring slightly in his exhaustion.

The Master's face filled with relief for just a second as he saw the Doctor then his walls were back up and his face was guarded as he sat up to look around. "We're in the TARDIS," he said, confusion coloring his voice."What happened?"

The Doctor was almost ready to collapse but he managed to gesture to himself and then to the Master and say, softly, "You saved me... I saved you... Guess we're even now."

Then he laid his head down on the cold metal grating and closed his eyes. The Master was almost speechless for once, merely placing his hand over the Doctor's and holding it to his own face. "Thank you," he whispered, once he was sure the Doctor was really asleep.

"Thank you."

**Hello! Mandy here. Just wanted to let you know that Eleven is just waiting longer for his regeneration and his timeline is the same as it is in canon. Also, we'll be updating every two weeks (or sooner, depending on when we get the chapters finished) on Saturday. **

**Thanks for reading. **


	2. Clothes Make the Man

**Hey! Rhia here. Yeah, I know, this is a really fast update... don't get used to it. *laughs* It's only because I've had this chapter written for a while-we haven't started the next one yet, and Mandy starts school tomorrow, so there will be a wait. Don't hurt me... *waves white flag furiously***

**Warnings for the chapter, you say? Um... fluffles, minimal angst. And a bit of tsundere!Master.**

When the Master finally awoke, he felt extremely disoriented, although more rested than he had been in a long time. There was something missing, he thought, and he wasn't supposed to be here, but what was missing—and where "here" was—had momentarily escaped him.

Slowly, it began to come back to him. Pictures, sounds, feelings. The room with the glass roof, and the Doctor crashing through it like an ange—a bumbling fool, the horrible noise of glass breaking, falling. The Doctor pointing a gun at him, telling him to get out of the way. His rage at Rassilon for making him into the monster he knew he'd become—yes, he had finally admitted it, although he was trying not to think about it. Trying to kill Rassilon, for vengeance and to save his Doctor—uh, that insufferable idiot. Being pulled into the Time Lock with—

Wait.

He was in the Doctor's TARDIS. The Doctor had _saved_ him, he realized, lip curling in distaste. He didn't need _saving._ All right, so it had been… helpful. Sure, he missed Gallifrey, but being stuck there for eternity and having to face up to his crimes was not something he'd wanted for himself. But then, his "eternity" probably would not have lasted long. He was weak, about to d—

Oh. Yes. He remembered the last bit now. For some reason, he felt himself blushing. Stupid, really. It wasn't as if it had been t-that… well, it hadn't _meant_ anything, had it? No, of course not. Just… the Doctor, wanting to hang on to his own consciousness, and of course wanting to _save_ the Master. Always "saving" people, wasn't he? Especially the ones who didn't need saving. Which he hadn't. Not at all.

Well, maybe a little, he admitted to himself grudgingly.

And that… well, whatever the Doctor had done… sharing his regeneration energy… whatever that was. It had felt, well—no, that was nothing. Of course it hadn't felt _intimate._ What was he thinking? Since when had he been in a bed?

Having successfully distracted himself from his own thoughts, which seemed to be racing around in his head very strangely, the Master sat up, taking in his surroundings. Bedroom. Looked pretty normal. His head felt very strange. There was something missing, from the room, or from…. his head?

One-two-three-four, he tapped out on the duvet. Familiar, comforting. One, two, three—

_There was no echo._ Nothing in his ears except the dull thump of his hand tapping out the rhythm. It sounded sad. He could barely hear it. _And there was nothing else._

The Doctor! He had taken the drums away, he had tried to _fix_ the Master, he didn't need fixing, why did the Doctor feel the need to rummage around in his head—

Or…. No. What if….

The signal was gone. It was _gone_, vanished with Rassilon into the Time Lock. _The Master was alone in his own head._

He didn't know whether to scream or laugh, so he did both, a strange strangled cry, clutching at the pillow as if it were his last lifeline.

The Doctor poked his head around the doorframe a few seconds later, which the Master supposed had been inevitable. He carefully did not think about… what he'd been thinking about a minute ago. "You're awake! Did you have a nightmare?" the Doctor asked, eyes filled with concern.

The Master rolled his own eyes. "I don't need you to do the mother-hen thing over me, Doctor, and no. Worse than that."

The Doctor babbled something along the lines of "Oh-no-what's-wrong-let-me-help," which the Master stopped listening to after the first syllable, and rushed over to the side of the bed.

"Where did you find this room, anyway?" the Master asked, evading the issue. In response, the Doctor only gave him a Look that was a strange hybrid between a death glare and his patented puppy-dog eyes.

The Master sighed. "The drums are gone, and I _assume_ you had nothing to do with it." (Read: If this is your fault I will personally tear you limb from limb, no matter how much I lo—_like_—_**hate**__—__**respect**_you.)

Wide eyes. "They're _gone?_"

That would be either a "no" or an "I'm such a good actor, look, I didn't know about that at _all!_"

"_Yes._ Did you not hear me the first time?"

"I did, but… that's great!" The Doctor started forward excitedly as if to hug the Master, but drew back quickly, letting his arms fall to his sides as if he didn't know quite what to do with them. Despite himself, the Master felt a little… disappointed. And annoyed. Mostly annoyed.

"Um, uh, that's great!" the Doctor said again, putting one of his hands behind his head awkwardly.

"No. It. Isn't," the Master said through gritted teeth, glaring at the Doctor, who, exasperatingly enough, seemed to have no idea what he'd said wrong.

"But… why not? Now you're free, right?" Well, of course this didn't make sense to _him_, with his saving-people thing. He thought the Master was _saved_ from the drums. But what he really needed saving from now was himself.

Without thinking, the Master reached out and put his hands behind the Doctor's head, pulling their faces closer together. "You don't _understand_," he growled. "Those drums made me who I am. So _who am I now?_ I've lost _everything._ And you think that's _great?_" he almost shouted.

There was a pause in which the Master realized just how close the Doctor's face was to his and what would happen if they got any closer. Then he jumped back as if he'd been electrocuted, somehow managing to bump his nose painfully on the Doctor's as he did so.

"I-I'm sorry, I didn't know… I, uh…" the Doctor stammered, backing away and blushing furiously in a manner that the Master could almost describe as adorable… i-if he didn't hate the idiot so much. And well, you were allowed to think of someone as adorable even if you hated them! Right? Er. He should say something, shouldn't he?

"Uh… it doesn't matter, I mean, it's not, I mean—oh, _Rassilon,_ I really need to work this stupid personality out." The Master considered for a moment the merits of picking up the pillow and burying his face in it, but ultimately decided against it as it would probably make things even _more_ awkward between the two of them. Which would be quite a feat, since he was pretty sure things had _never_ been this awkward between them, not even when they were at school.

"Clothes!" the Doctor burst out suddenly.

"…_what?_" The Master overemphasized the word and gave the Doctor a "you have gone completely mad and that's strange coming from me" look.

"Maybe finding you some clothes that aren't those awful rags will help with the, er, personality issues! No offense to your current clothes of course," the Doctor said, although his face clearly said that he was indeed taking offense to the Master's current clothes and would he take them _off_ before some… thing… happened oh no Master you are _not_ blushing. The Master quickly turned his face away, pretending to be very interested in the wall (quite an awful shade of green now that he looked at it) rather than the Doctor's face or his own treacherous thoughts. What _was_ he, a bloody schoolgirl?

"Uh… Master?"

"Yes! Yes, sorry, that's… fine."

"Did you just _apologize_ to me? Rassilon, this is worse than I thought!" the Doctor said with a slightly forced laugh.

The awkwardness just was not going away, was it? And the Master's head was spinning, thoughts racing one after another in endless circles. Who was he, without the drums? He felt awful, _vulnerable_, like he was an eight-year-old child again—which in a sense he was. He had kept some of his old self, but it felt… younger somehow, more easily wounded. His walls were crumbling. Those walls had been built up by the drums, and without them… well, he would just have to build new ones.

"Here we are!" he heard the Doctor say, as if from far away, and realized that they'd been walking. Oh yes, the closet.

"Here, you can have some of my old things," the Doctor said, beaming and shoving about three shirts, four jackets and two pairs of pants into the Master's arms in quick succession. The Master rolled his eyes. What did he expect him to do, put them all on at once? Finding a convenient chair, he dumped most of the clothes onto it and held up one jacket for inspection.

"_Ugh!_ Doctor, you _kept_ this _atrocious_ jacket?" The Master winced at the bright colours currently making his eyes burn.

"It brings back memories! Like that time with the Rani and—"

"Yes, I remember it quite clearly, thank you. I _was_ there. The time when your obnoxious companion was nearly turned into a tree, yes?"

"Peri wasn't obnoxious! She was… uh… okay, she was a little obnoxious that day," the Doctor conceded.

"Her entire vocabulary consisted of the words 'Oh no,' 'Doctor' and 'Save me,'" the Master deadpanned, tossing the (horrid) jacket to the floor. "And this jacket made you look like you'd escaped from the circus. That regeneration had awful fashion sense."

"Oh yes, like you're one to talk. Remember what _you_ were wearing that day?"

"What exactly was the problem with it? It was a perfectly _sensible_ outfit, and it was _black_, not… whatever you choose to call that monstrosity."

The Doctor gave him a Look. "It had bows on."

"It… did… all right, fine, you win. I can't think of a suitable comeback to that one. You _kept_ this?" The Master held up a shirt with poufy sleeves—_the_ shirt with poufy sleeves, the one he'd worn as Professor Yana—and stared at it. "Where's the waistcoat? Or did you only like the shirt?"

…and if he didn't know better, he'd say the Doctor was _blushing._

"I—I had no idea I had that! _You_ stuck it in my closet, didn't you, when you _stole my bloody TARDIS?_" If the Doctor was blushing as he said this, the Master couldn't tell, because the Doctor had (rather conveniently) turned his back and was looking through a rack of shoes.

"I did _not!_ I remember exactly where I left those clothes, and it wasn't here. Why did you keep them?"

"I… didn't know they were yours?" Still refusing to look at the Master. The Doctor always had been bad at coming up with excuses.

"You're contradicting yourself. Never mind, I don't want to know. You still _have_ this jacket? Rassilon, your third regeneration used to wear this thing!" the Master said, picking up a maroon velvet jacket and hanging it tidily over the back of the chair.

"Here, I have some of his shirts, too!" The Doctor beamed, handing the Master a tangled mess of white with ruffles that looked like it had about five sleeves.

"Wha—_do you even have a system of organization for this mess?_" The Master gestured wildly at the room, which seemed both endlessly large and endlessly disorganized. There were pieces of clothing strewn everywhere, including the floor, and he could see several dresses and skirts mixed in with what was supposed to be the coatrack, a mismatched pair of socks hanging from the back of a chair, and was that a _wig_ in one of those shoeboxes?

"Um…" The Doctor looked sheepish. One hand was behind his head again, that awkward gesture more than one of his regenerations seemed to do. "Well, I _did._"

"_What happened to it?_" The Master's love of organization was setting in again, and this was the exact opposite of organized.

"Um… companions happened?" The Doctor gestured helplessly at the dresses and the wig, which the Master now recognized as the one Jo Grant had worn that time in Atlantis.

"Oh, for the love of—just turn around, would you? Unless you don't actually want me to change and only dragged me here in order to torture me with… this."

"Oh! Right!" The Doctor turned around obligingly and pretended to be very interested in the rack of clothes in front of him. Well, the Master supposed he might not be pretending. Probably remembering good times with his _companions_, all those bloody Earth girls… oh yes, he was supposed to be changing clothes.

When the Doctor finally turned around again, it was all he could do to stifle an "aww" or other sort of acknowledging-cuteness noise that would probably have gotten him killed (or at least Death Glare'd). The Master was wearing one of his old ruffled shirts, but the sleeves were… a bit long. Well, ridiculously long, really, and it was rather adorable. He coughed and said "You look… different," trying not to blush. Again.

Sure enough, the Master was glaring at him, or possibly at the sleeves, it was a bit hard to tell, since he kept looking back and forth between them. Finally, he only said "Sleeves are too long" and motioned for the Doctor to turn around again, at which point he attempted to collect his thoughts by staring intensely at the sleeve of one of Rose's old dresses. It didn't work.

"Is that a cravat?" The Master's voice broke into his thoughts, although he was glad of the distraction.

"What? Er, yes," the Doctor said, after looking around distractedly for said accessory.

"Pass it."

"Er—right." The Doctor grabbed the cravat, which had been tossed haphazardly over the top of one of the clothing racks, and stuck his arm out blindly, waiting until he no longer felt the fabric in his hand and then putting that hand self-consciously in his pocket.

"Right, you can turn around."

The Doctor did so. This time, he didn't manage to restrain himself from making an extremely coherent noise something along the lines of "Kdzjwha." The Master only looked at him in annoyance and what might have been slight amusement.

"You'll have to be slightly more articulate than that, _my dear Doctor_…"

The Doctor just stared. Not only was the Master wearing a cravat, he was also wearing one of the Doctor's own (well, his third incarnation's) velvet coats and a different shirt with ruffles on the sleeves. The overall effect (that is, if he had been wearing shoes) was that of a Victorian gentleman. He'd definitely never seen the Master like _this_ before. And he had said—the Doctor's eyes widened. Was that on purpose or because he was currently thinking more like his earlier regenerations?

"Um… shoes," was all the Doctor could say in between staring and trying not to stare. _Why did he say that, was that meant to annoy me or—_

"Yes, those would help, wouldn't they? Can't exactly go on wearing those ratty old trainers, can I?" The Master smirked. He was enjoying this, the Doctor realized, and the small part of his brain still capable of coherent thought realized _He seems to be back to his old self. His old, snarky, not-quite-so-crazy self…_

"Er, yes! Shoes! Boots, there are some boots over there." Vague gesture to the right.

"Good." After looking through the messy pile of shoes and attempting to organize them somehow, the Master finally found a pair he liked. He put the left one on, picked up the right one and—the lace broke.

"You need to take better care of these, Doctor. The lace on this is broken," he said, holding up the offending object.

"Shoelaces, yes, I've got those somewhere. Er… box, they're in a box, they—ah! This way," the Doctor said, looking pleased with himself and more than a little relieved to have something useful to think about. Lucky that bootlace was broken, or he might have been standing there staring awkwardly for _ages_, he thought, turning the corner into the main control room_._

"Doctor. _Why_ do you have shoelaces in a box in the main control room?" the Master asked patiently. Or, well, as if he was trying to be patient and it wasn't working very well. The Doctor's lack of an attention span was beginning to get on his nerves. Oh, who was he kidding? It was always on his nerves, every time he was in the same _room _with the idiot.

"Best place to keep things. Here it is!" The Doctor reached under a panel in the floor and pulled out a small cardboard box with various items (papers, books, and—yes, a shoelace) spilling over the edges and a messy letter S scrawled on the outside. "Now let's see. Not the right length, tangled in—what's _that_ doing in there? Oh yes, Sally Sparrow—here we are!"

The Master looked on in confusion and annoyance as the Doctor proceeded to toss several things across the room (one of which promptly landed half-over a lever, another in a dusty corner and yet another nearly on the Master's head) in his search.

"Give me that." The Master grabbed the shoelace, stuck it in his pocket, and wrested the box from a momentarily very surprised Doctor. "First of all, _what_ is this book doing in the S box?"

"Title starts with an—oh."

"Exactly. Is everything you own in this much of a mess? Never mind, I don't want to know. Get the sock off of that lever, and while you're at it put that book in the correct box, and…."

In the argument that ensued, neither of them noticed the photograph quietly sitting in the neglected corner in which it had fallen…

* * *

><p>"…and do you ever <em>clean<em> this place? I didn't even think it was _possible_ to have that much dust in one room!" the Master nearly yelled as he walked half-sideways back into the main control room, still incensed from a "tour" of the Doctor's TARDIS that had ended up more like "let's take this argument around random hallways that are even messier than the control room!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I must not have found time in between _saving the universe_ and foiling your plans _again,_" the Doctor shot back, deliberately taking the long way around the console bank in order to more effectively yell at the Master across it. "And being attacked, kidnapped, all manner of—"

"Oh, come on. When was the last time you were kidnapped?"

"By you, actually."

"You're bluffing, aren't you? You have no idea."

"Yes I do! I'm just… finding it hard to place in my personal timestream."

"Your excuses are terr—" The Master cut himself off, staring intensely into a corner.

"What, see a ghost?" the Doctor half-joked, feeling slightly—incongruously—worried.

"Doctor," the Master said carefully, not allowing his gaze to leave the darkened corner, "you don't happen to have _statues_ aboard the TARDIS, do you? One of which you wouldn't have happened to move in here as a practical joke?"

"No, I—what are you talking about?" The Doctor maneuvered around a bench to peer into the corner the Master seemed to find so interesting.

"So, this is the… real… thing." The Master had more fear in his voice than the Doctor could ever remember hearing, and upon reaching the spot, dread filling his hearts, the Doctor could see why.

"A Weeping Angel."

**...don't hurt me! *waves white flag again* I'm sorry for the evil cliffhanger! I'm sorryyyy~ *wails***

**But... *cough* It would, ahem, motivate us to put you out of your misery faster if you reviewed to tell us how evil we are (or how awesome, but that might be pushing it after that cliffie). Just sayin'.**


	3. Where Angels Fear To Tread

**A/N: And we're back! Sorry for the late update, we both started school right after the last one and things went to hell in a handbasket. Don't blame Mandy, either, it's Rhia's fault it took us this long 'cause Mandy had it written for aaaages and Rhia couldn't edit it *Rhia is sorry* Anyway, um, enjoy!**

**Hullo! Tis Mandy. Sorry this took so long but as Rhia so aptly put it, hell in a handbasket sort of happened. Complete with facepalming and headdesking. Hope you like the chapter! There will be cute fluffles next chapter, courtesy of Rhia!**

**Also, thank you to SparkyDorian, Ice and Jay whose reviews we couldn't reply to personally.  
><strong>

The Doctor froze, eyes wide, as he stared at the stone angel in the corner.

"How the hell did it get in?" the Master hissed, eyes darting between the Angel and the Doctor.

"I don't know! Don't take your eyes off it, do you ever listen?"

The Master muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "not to you, I don't" but fixed his gaze on the Angel as the Doctor edged around the console towards him.

The Doctor sighed. He'd forgotten just how snarky the Master got when their lives were in danger.

The Doctor quickly reached the Master and grabbed his arm. The Master started, almost turning around to look at the Doctor, who yelped and said, "Keep looking!"

"I am, Doctor, do you really think I'm that thick?"

"Well, you proved that point about ten seconds ago. So, keep looking at it!"

Staring at the demonic expression on the statue's face, the Master shuddered slightly and said, "We've got to get out of here. "

The Doctor nodded, then, realizing the Master couldn't see him, he said, "Yes. I'm going to try to get us out into the hallway, keep looking at the Angel."

The Doctor tore his eyes away from the menacing statue and began to pull his companion towards the door, wondering slightly when he'd started thinking of the Master as his "companion" but deciding shortly afterward that he didn't care as long as the idiot _kept looking at the Angel._

"Alright, let's move," said the Master as soon as the Angel was out of his line of sight. He pulled his arm out of the Doctor's grip and opened the door to the first room he saw, which, the Doctor noted absentmindedly, had books in it. His brain was too confused to figure out what that meant, though, and he ran into whatever room it was blindly, followed shortly by the Master, who had stopped to check the corridor.

"Now, I am assuming," the Master said, turning to look at the Doctor and leaning against the door in a manner that might be construed as casual if one chose to ignore the slight panic in his eyes, "that this somehow makes sense to you, because an alien assassin that I thought was mythical getting onto your TARDIS is a bit strange to me."

The Doctor was leaning up against a bookshelf behind him, eyes closed, lips moving very quickly as if he was doing some sort of mental calculation. For all the Master knew, he could be.

"Doctor!" His friend's eyes snapped open and flitted about the room for a second before settling on the Master. "Yes, hello."

The Master rolled his eyes. "How," he said, slowly and patronizingly, "did that Weeping Angel get on your TARDIS?"

"The image of an angel becomes an angel," the Doctor muttered.

"What?" the Master said, only half-hearing the other man.

The Doctor spun around, pulling books from the shelves around him and tossing them haphazardly over his shoulder, usually narrowly missing the pool. Pool?

The Master suddenly became aware of his surroundings. Ah, yes. They were in a library. A library with a pool? The man was even stranger than he'd thought.

He heard a cry that sounded suspiciously like, "Eureka!" from the other side of the room and turned to see the Doctor holding up a small brown book.

"What are you yelling about?" the Master called across the room.

"This book," came the response, "the only book ever written about the Weeping Angels. At least, the only one that has a shred of truth in it. Most of it is almost indecipherable but I think it might be able to help us. I read it years ago, when I got stuck back in 1969."

"You got stuck in 1969?"

"Er, yes?"

The Master put a hand to his forehead and sighed. "Why do I bother to listen to you? Anyway, what was that about images?"

"'The image of angel becomes an angel.' I always thought it was some meaningless phrase about imagination or just more babblings but no, the bit I ignored was the most important. Never ignore things! Um."

"Doctor? I'm not one of your ditzy little Earth girls. Tell me what's going on or I will quite possibly hit you over the head with this here, er, book of Shakespeare and then throw you into the pool."

The Doctor nodded as though this was only to be expected. Well, it was the Master. He'd serenaded him with the Scissor Sisters while he was essentially burning the world alive. And that was a good day!

"Basically, Weeping Angels can project themselves out of any recording, photograph, or drawing and almost will themselves into existence. A girl I met when I was stuck – well, kind of before, kind of after – gave me a photograph of the Weeping Angels so that I could recognize them. It's not as powerful as a 'real' Angel but it's powerful enough to – "

"To kill us," the Master deadpanned.

"Wellll, not exactly."

"How can they not exactly kill us?"

"They can send us back in time. But being inside a time machine makes that a bit difficult. Maybe their power is rendered useless? I don't know. But we have to keep the Angel from getting into the heart of the TARDIS. If it breaks into that, the pure potential energy will give it enough power not only to be a fully-realized Weeping Angel, but enough power to do damage I can't even begin to imagine."

"So you left it alone. In the main control room. With the console," the Master said, eyes widening despite himself.

"If I'm right, and I nearly always am, the Angel isn't strong enough to break through to the TARDIS yet. But there is a tiny little chance that I might, well – "

"Be wrong?"

"That I might have miscalculated."

The Master shook his head. "How do we stop it? We'd need something that could stay in one place indefinitely without blinking. Camera?"

"Image of an Angel," the Doctor said in an almost singsong voice.

"So how…?"

"Well, first we need to make sure that it hasn't absorbed the TARDIS energy and torn a hole in the fabric of the universe, yes?"

"Yes, yes, wonderful idea," the Master said, "but what if we die?"

The Doctor shrugged. "We won't. The worst thing that can happen is that the Angel will send us back in time. That wouldn't be so terrible."

"Depends where it sends us," the Master muttered darkly. "I for one have no desire to run into dear old Rassilon again." The Doctor spun around from where he had been fiddling with the door handle, a look of blank horror on his face.

The Master snickered. "Yeah, I didn't think so."

"Oi! He's properly frightening, he is," the Doctor said, looking almost like a five-year-old whose mum had just threatened to turn out the lights.

"We have to go out there eventually, Doctor," he said, resisting the urge to start tapping his foot. One-two-three-four. The rhythm would at least be something familiar in this odd, whirlwind adventure.

He joined the Doctor by the door. Wide brown eyes stared into his and he could almost see the Doctor wondering if this time, something would slip, their luck would run out and they would find themselves in a place that they couldn't talk their way out of.

But the Master gave an almost imperceptible nod (after all, what else were they going to do?) and watched his friend slowly open the door and step out. He followed quickly, eyes darting. The corridor was dark.

"What happened to all the li-" the Master started to say, before hearing the Doctor shriek out, "Rassilon!"

He turned and saw the Weeping Angel, eyes open and blank and arms outstretched to touch each of them on the arm.

"Oh f-"

XxXxXxXx

The Doctor came to, becoming aware of a throbbing ache in his head and a slight sense of wooziness. "What's it… what's going…" he slurred, words running together as he blinked and raised his head.

He saw the Master lying a few feet from him, curled up in the fetal position. He was suddenly overwhelmed by the strange urge to pick him up and cuddle him. Needless to say, he resisted.

He could hear the Master groan softly as he regained consciousness and stood up to better see their surroundings. In a few moments, the Master was standing beside him, beach blonde hair ruffled and new clothes ripped and dirty.

"You look a bit of a mess," the Doctor said, not even turning to look at the man standing beside him. He could feel the death glare he was getting nonetheless.

"You don't look much better," came the response. He felt a hand brush softly through his hair and turned to see the Master holding up a leaf.

"Only you, my dear Master," said the Doctor, "would notice a thing like that when we have just been sent back in time by a Weeping Angel."

The blonde man shrugged and gave him a true politician's smile. "What can I say? I'm just exceptional."

"You make incredibly cheesy comebacks too easy."

"Oh… shut up. Where are we, anyway?" The Master looked around, confusion coloring his features as he took in the factories all around.

The Doctor frowned slightly. "It's Earth all right. But not as I know it, this is something entirely different from any time period I've seen. There were never factories like these, at least not so many…"

The Doctor's voice died away as a familiar silver sphere flew through the air just above their heads. "Oh god," he almost choked out. "They've sent us back into the Year That Never Was."

The Master gave a derisive snort. "I could practically feel the capitals, Doctor. What are you on about? We were in a time machine, one that wasn't landed anywhere. It couldn't possibly have sent us back in time."

"You're half right. It didn't send us back in the timeline of a particular place. It sent us back in our own personal timeline. Welcome back, Master, to the living hell on Earth that you created." He gestured to the landscape. From where he stood, the Master could see the factories where his "Toclafane" were turning the Doctor's favorite planet into a war ship.

The Master shook his head, eyes wide with a sort of glassy almost-horror. "No, no, no, no, that's impossible! This whole thing never happened. It was erased by the Archangel Network. So how are we here?"

"The angel wanted to keep us from ever getting back to the TARDIS. What better way than to lock us inside a year that is relative to our personal timeline but not that of the rest of the universe?"

The Master gave a low whistle. "That is… that is pretty damn airtight. How are we getting out of this one?"

The Doctor looked around desperately, then gave a yell of frustration that even the Master had to jump at. "I don't know," the Doctor said, voice low and almost angry. "We would have to have some sort of teleport and a time travel device. I might be able to alter the mechanism so that it could home in on the TARDIS' energy signature. But see, we're on Earth in 2007! No one will have a time travel device, not even a teleport!"

A thought suddenly flitted across the Master's mind. He glanced at the Doctor who looked about ready to start tearing his hair out (no, really. His hands had somehow migrated from his hips to his head and had begun seizing handfuls of spiky brown hair) and said, "What about the Freak? No, no, wait, the girly… Which was the pretty one?"

The Doctor frowned over at his companion. "D'you mean Martha?"

The Master shook his head vigorously. "The pretty one! Um, um, Jack! That was his name. He has a Vortex Manipulator."

The Doctor's eyes widened and his mouth fell open slightly. "Ooh. Ooh! Yes," he said, clapping his hands. "Martha has the Vortex Manipulator now! Ah, of course. It all makes sense now. That's how she knew what to do with the countdown, I told her! And I always did wonder why she walked across all those continents when she had a perfectly good teleport."

The blonde man gave a derisive snort. "Yeah," he muttered, "or maybe she was just stupid."

XxXxXxXx

The Doctor stood behind a tree at the edge of a field, watching a terrified Martha Jones pace back and forth, tears running down her face as she watched the spheres savage the world around her.

He took a deep breath in and strode out towards her, leaving the Master hiding among the trees. Lots of extremely Not Good, potentially paradoxical things could happen if Martha knew what happened to the Master. Their realization of this fact had naturally caused lots of whining. None of which was the Master. *cough* Of course.

As soon as he reached the frightened woman, he reached out a hand to touch her shoulder. She whirled around, hands already flying up to defend herself and then froze. After a few seconds of blank incomprehension, she said, "Doctor?" in a hoarse, disbelieving voice.

The Doctor nodded. "It's me, Martha." She threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his chest, crying into his shoulder. He hesitated a moment before putting his hands on her back and awkwardly patting her. "It's all right, Martha, I promise, it will be all right," he said in what he hoped was a soothing voice.

Martha pulled away after a moment, wiping her eyes. "How... how are you here, Doctor?" she said, her face confused and more than a little scared. "How did you get off the Valiant? And why are you young again?"

The Doctor sighed. "Well, technically, I didn't get off the Valiant. Well, I did but not just now. It was - ooh. Quite a few years ago now. That's weird. Anyway, at this point in my time-stream, I'm still on board the Valiant listening to the Scissor Sisters and watching the Earth be eaten alive. But at some point in the future - your future, that is - you save me."

Her eyes widened. "I do?" she whispered. "But how? What do I do? Can't you help me, Doctor?"

He shook his head. "I've got a bit of a situation that I need to sort out. I'll tell you what to do, but I'm afraid that's as much as I can do."

She nodded, and the Doctor could see that she was still trying to hold back tears. He put a steadying hand on her shoulder and began to explain.

"See, the Archangel Network has linked everyone's thoughts by that one rhythm..."

XxXxXxXx

Almost an hour later, the Doctor almost bounced back into the forest, beaming and clutching a Vortex Manipulator.

"You took your bloody time," the Master grumbled, stepping forward to meet him.

The Doctor shrugged. "Explaining the logistics of saving the world through a psychic connection takes a bit of time. Not to mention all the wibbly-wobbly paradoxes."

The Master's eyes widened and the Doctor could see him mouthing "wibbly…wobbly… paradoxes…" out of the corner of his eye.

The Doctor rolled his eyes and beckoned the Master over to him. "C'mon then. Just put your hand on the VM…"

"Oh, so it's an acronym now."

The Doctor turned and glared. "Yes. Yes it is. Problem?"

The Master held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Not at all, my dear Doctor." The Doctor considered this and then turned his death glare to "stun."

"Alright. Put your hand on the _Vortex Manipulator _and I'll punch in the coordinates… In emergencies the TARDIS is set to find one of three locations," he held up three fingers. "The Glass Hills of Elaticon, Tokyo in 2104 or Paris in 1749."

The Master frowned and said, "Is there a particular reason that you chose those places?"

The Doctor shrugged and looked slightly nervous. "It seemed like a good idea at the time?"

The Master put his hand on the "VM" and said, "Why don't we try Japan first? It's physically closer, so it might be less of a drain on the Manipulator."

The Doctor nodded in agreement and punched in the coordinates. He looked at the Master, eyes slightly wary. "Ready?" the Doctor asked, searching the Master's face for any sign of fear.

His friend smiled, almost wickedly. "Always," he said and pressed the button that would send them back to the TARDIS.

XxXxXxXx

In a matter of seconds they found themselves in the TARDIS again, in the corridor just off the control room where they had taken refuge before.

The Doctor put a finger to his lips and then edged towards the door to the control room. The Master followed a bit behind, noting that the TARDIS's emergency programs must have kicked in; dim light flooded the hall and they could almost see the outline of the Angel in the control room.

"How do we stop it?" the Master muttered, looking over at the Doctor, whose brown eyes were fixed unblinkingly on the stone assassin.

"I'll do a thing and be extraordinarily clever and save the day and then we'll fly off into the sunset, happy as can be. No, I'll find a way to stop the Angel," he said, eyes never leaving said Angel.

The Master gritted his teeth. "You don't know," he hissed, "what you're going to do?"

The Doctor shrugged and said, "It's not how I do things."

"What does how you do things matter when we are quite possibly going to die," the Master said, voice completely flat and expressionless. The spiky-haired, long-coat-wearing idiot was actually walking them into a death trap.

The Master wanted to hit something. So he smacked the Doctor in the back of the head. He flinched but his eyes never left the Angel. The Doctor had been expecting it. Of course.

"We should move through to the control room," the Doctor whispered, turning his face ever-so-slightly towards the Master.

The Master nodded and followed the Doctor as he edged through the doorway and into the control room, both keeping their eyes fixed on the Angel.

Finally, they were only about two feet away from the Angel. It seemed to be draped over the console, its arms wrapped around it in a sort of grotesque parody of an embrace and its head turned, staring out into the now empty hall.

The Doctor gave what could only be described as an angry whimper as he looked at the dark central column of the TARDIS. "It's just drained the time energy," the Master said, in what was presumably meant to be a comforting voice. "You can use the auxiliary power supply until we get back to wherever it is on this bloody planet that you refuel."

The Doctor nodded and turned to the console. "I'm going to try something," the Doctor said, "keep looking at it!"

He fiddled around with the levers and buttons and the Master stood staring fixedly at the Angel. And blinked.

The second he opened his eyes, the Master saw the Angel standing upright and pointing at the light. "Oh god," the Master said, turning to look at the Doctor.

"Doctor, it's turning out the lights! What the hell do we - "

The Angel disappeared and the lights came back on. "…do?" the Master finished lamely. "What?"

The Doctor smiled. "Never used that feature before! Time loops; trapped it in the exact instant before it turned off the lights!"

The Master smiled back in relief, trying not to notice how much the Doctor looked like a five year old showing his parents a finger painting. The adorable may or may not have reached giggle-inducing levels but the Master wasn't going to commit himself either way.

"So," the Doctor said, bouncing on his heels, "what do we do now?"


	4. City of Steel

**Rhia: Sorry for the late update! Yet again *sigh* It's the end of the quarter, what can I say? Also, this chapter was strangely hard to write. But here, have some fluff to make up for it! ^-^**

**Mandy: Just for those who are WTF-ing over the Japanese as they're reading, there's a translation at the bottom. Also, enjoy! (I did. I love this chapter.)**

The TARDIS door creaked open as the Doctor and the Master stepped out into a crystalline city of towering buildings. The Master stared at the sleek monorail pods rushing past high above them and tried to figure out how to break the mechanism as quickly and effectively as possible, while the Doctor shook his timepiece, frowned at it, put it to his ear and frowned at it again.

"That's odd," said the Doctor, still frowning and turning the timepiece over in his hand.

"Hmm," said the Master, not really paying attention. "Do you think the supports really are as flimsy as they look? One well-placed explosive—"

"I _said_, it's odd that my timepiece says we're in 2104," the Doctor reiterated patiently.

"Why? Isn't that when we're _supposed_ to be?" the Master said, finally taking time off from craning his neck and plotting to pursue his favourite pastime, proving the Doctor wrong.

"Yes, but this—" the Doctor waved vaguely at the city, which looked "futuristic," at least according to 21st-century humans' definition of the word—"is not Tokyo in 2104. Tokyo in 2104 is a few sparse radiation-shielded settlements and a lot of water. And mechanics. Very good mechanics, which is why I chose this time in the first place. But this, _this_ is Tokyo in round about 2070, if I'm not mistaken. Yet both the TARDIS and my timepiece say it's 2104."

"Must be a malfunction caused by the Angel," said the Master, still thinking about monorails.

"Yes, it must be. So what say we find a hotel?" said the Doctor, abruptly switching gears.

"A _what?_ You expect _me_ to stay in a HOTEL?" The Master turned and glared at the Doctor, all plotting forgotten.

"It would be a _nice_ hotel," said the Doctor, looking rather hurt in that kicked-puppy way of his which was decidedly _not_ adorable in the slightest. "But the TARDIS is going to kick us out. She needs time to repair herself. I had hoped there would be mechanics here who would speed the process, but apparently not… although I suppose there might still be mechanics… anyway, let's go find a hotel~!"

Without waiting for an answer, the Doctor started walking in a random direction as if he actually had the slightest clue where he was going. When he noticed that the Master was just standing there, still glaring, he sighed, ran back a bit, grabbed the Master's hand and dragged him along in the same random direction. The Master stopped glaring, if only to pretend he wasn't blushing.

"Oh, I know! Let's ask someone for directions," said the Doctor as if this was the most brilliant idea in the history of creation. The Master rolled his eyes. He would never even have considered asking for directions, preferring instead to wander around looking evil enough that other people would leave him alone and eventually scare them into giving him directions without his having to ask nicely. Of course, in this situation… well, it was a bit hard to look evil and intimidating whilst being dragged around by the hand by an overly enthusiastic spiky-haired idiot. Mostly he just looked sullen and tried to pretend he didn't.

"Hi," said the Doctor, grinning at a random passerby and refusing to let go of the Master's hand, much to his chagrin. What was he, the Doctor's pet evil overlord? "Can you tell us where to find a good hotel? We're traveling and—"

"アの、すみませんが、英語がわかりません," said the passerby. "イギリス人ですか？"

The Doctor and the Master stared at each other, then at the woman.

"Well, that was unexpected," said the Doctor.

"Why can't we understand her? Or was that just me?" The Master stared at the woman accusingly, as if it were her fault he didn't speak Japanese.

"No, me too. I think the Angel must have done something to the TARDIS's translation circuits." The Doctor looked sheepish and _still did not bloody let go of the Master's hand._ Why was he being subjected to this torture?

"Wonderful. So now we're stranded in a time that isn't what we thought it was, where the people speak a language we can't understand, _without your bloody TARDIS?_"

"Er, yes, basically. I do understand a bit of Japanese though. I _think_ she was saying she didn't understand us and asking if we were… something. Foreigners maybe. Um, _hoteru wa dou desu ka?_" the Doctor tried, looking hopefully at the woman, who now looked very confused and like she was trying not to be annoyed.

"ホテル？どのホテルですか？"

"Uhhh, _hoteru wa imasu ka?_"

It was all the Master could do not to laugh at what even he could tell was the Doctor's complete butchering of the Japanese language. Maybe they should get a phrasebook. Ugh, now he was thinking like one of the Doctor's stupid little humans!

"ホテル？えと、銀のホテルでしょう。"

"Um. A hotel called Ginno. I think," the Doctor 'translated.'

"You don't know, do you?" The Master couldn't help laughing a little at the look of consternation on the Doctor's face. He'd never seen him so unsure of himself. Strangely enough, all he wanted to do was make him sure of himself again. But that would be stupid. Yes. The Master banished the thought from his mind and went back to plotting revenge for the Doctor's personal brand of public humiliation.

* * *

><p>After what felt like several days of being dragged around by the wrist and enduring the Doctor's terrible Japanese as he asked multiple passerby for directions, they finally came to the hotel, whose name apparently translated (unimaginatively) to the Silver Hotel. The Master only knew this because he, apparently the only <em>sensible<em> one here, had made the Doctor ask for a translation of the name. The concierge had been able to tell them right away, of course, but then the concierge was an android and probably had some program for dealing with obnoxious foreigners. Of course, a translation of the hotel name was about all they were going to get, since the stupid robot apparently could not comprehend the words "room" and "please" in any language but Japanese.

Ah, he seemed to be finally getting somewhere. With atrocious pronunciation, the Doctor managed to say something like "_Atashi to Shujin_" (here pointing at the Master) "_wa…_ um… _heya kudasei_." The Master rolled his eyes and wondered if any of those words was actually correct. Somehow he doubted it. It was infuriating to him not to be able to correct the Doctor—especially since it was because, for some strange reason, the Doctor was _better_ at something than he was, which was even _more_ infuriating. The idiot had always had a gift for languages, though he'd never actually _tried_ very hard to learn them. But then again, what use would he ever have had for a language like Japanese, the language of a tiny little part of Earth that wasn't spoken anywhere else and was otherwise completely useless? And where would he have learned it _from_, anyway?

"ああ、部屋ですか？そうですねえ。こちらへ、お願いします。"

The Doctor stared blankly for a second, then nodded as if he had understood everything and began to follow the android, who was walking briskly towards a seamless metal door that slid open as he approached. Rolling his eyes, the Master followed suit. At least the Doctor had let go of his hand… before he could follow that train of thought any further, he busied himself with studying the android, which was very realistic, and wondering whether it was really an android or if it had a human consciousness in there somewhere. It was certainly capable of free thought, but it didn't seem to be enslaved by humans at all. In fact, it seemed to be the boss of this establishment.

"この部屋はどうですか," said the android, apparently trying to use words that would be as understandable as possible.

The Doctor failed to understand them. Oh, he tried, and did a rather good job of pretending he had, but the Master could tell that he had no idea.

"Um, _ii desu_," the Doctor attempted, giving the room a quick glance. The Master couldn't see past him and the concierge, a fact which annoyed him to no end, but apparently the room was fine or good or whatever the Doctor was trying to say.

After some more rapid-fire Japanese which blurred into meaningless syllables for both Time Lords, the concierge left, apparently annoyed. Perhaps he had been asking why they hadn't any luggage.

"Well, that was interesting!" the Doctor said brightly, waltzing into the room. "Shut the door behind you, yeah?"

"Er, yes, sure," said the Master, slightly distracted by the room's furnishings. Or lack of, in a certain crucial area.

"Hopefully the old girl's translation circuits will be repaired first and we'll actually be able to understand what's going on," the Doctor said, sitting down on the bed and bouncing experimentally.

"Er, Doctor?"

"But it's not so bad, not speaking the language. It's actually quite liberating in a way." The Doctor swung his feet in the air and flopped back onto the bed.

"_Doctor._"

"Yeah? Oh, this bed's really nice! We must have found a good hotel by some miracle." He poked at the pillow a few times.

"Yes, Doctor," said the Master, becoming more and more annoyed by the second. "_The_ bed."

"Yes?"

"THE bed. The only one there _is._"

"Ye—_oh._" The Doctor's childish mood quickly evaporated, and he half-sat up, decided against it, and remained in an awkward position on the bed. (The _only_ bed. Oh dear.)

"What, exactly, did you say to the concierge?" The Master glared down at him, hands on hips. Glared… down… oh, _Rassilon_. He jumped back quickly—this situation was awkward enough as it was—barked his shin on one of the legs of the bed, which supports seemed to have mysteriously appeared for the sole purpose of embarrassing him further, and realized belatedly that he _always_ did this sort of thing when the Doctor was around.

Oh, _Rassilon._ Was the entire universe conspiring to make him think about this, this strange relationship of theirs? He didn't _want_ to know what it was, felt better not knowing. But now that they were no longer strictly enemies and not really rivals, what, exactly, were they?

"Er, um, I don't know what I said! Maybe, maybe they just didn't have enough rooms with two beds?" the Doctor said desperately, making no move to get up even though the Master had (rather ungracefully) made his way to the other side of the room and was trying to compose himself by poking at random buttons on the wall interface.

"I… sorry, I don't know… ugh. I always do that to you, don't I?" the Master said quietly, still staring at the wall. There was a small pinging noise and a string of unintelligible characters came up on the wall in front of him.

"What's gotten into you? This apologizing thing, is it some new ploy of yours? Get me to feel guilty?"

"No! Oh, trust _you_ to read the wrong thing into every situation," the Master said, exasperated. "Anyway, how shall we decide the, er, sleeping arrangements?"

"I'll take the floor," said the Doctor readily.

"Always chivalrous, aren't you?" the Master said, smirking.

"You deserve the bed. You're the one recovering from a resurrection trauma, after all."

"Hey, I'm not arguing," the Master said, suddenly seeming like his old self again. "If anyone thinks I deserve the bed, it's me."

Both of them carefully didn't mention that there was ample room for two people in the Only Bed.

"So shall we go out and explore, or do you want to get some sleep?" The Doctor grinned exuberantly, but somehow it didn't have the manic energy of his usual self.

"I've had quite enough of your 'exploring.' 'Exploring' in whatever weird little universe you're in means 'getting us hopelessly lost and dragging me about by the wrist and completely failing to speak the language,' and I'm tired of it." The Master crossed his arms and tried to look intimidating, but mostly succeeded in looking cross.

"All right then, we get some rest!" The Doctor tried to look like he hadn't been hoping the Master would say that and utterly failed. Having a Weeping Angel in his TARDIS had been extremely draining, and he'd been trying not to let the Master see how tired he was (while noticing that the Master had been doing the same thing).

"Not that I _want_ to, of course," the Master added hastily. "Since I'm not the least bit tired. No, I'm only doing this because I can see that you're tired and—" where was he going with this sentence? Somewhere not good. He turned it around quickly and finished with "it's no fun torturing you when you're falling asleep on me, is it?" and his best approximation of his usual smirk.

"Right… then. So I'll just take the blanket over here and…"

"No you cannot! That is _my_ blanket," the Master said with righteous indignation, glad to have something petty to argue over.

"Which one do _I_ get then?" The Doctor pouted in a manner that was decidedly not adorable to the Master's overtired brain. Wait, no, the Master wasn't tired at _all_, so that excuse didn't work. Er… he was too tired to think of an excuse.

"_You_ get the blue one." The Master pointed imperiously at a corner of blanket sticking out from under the others.

"The blue—but that one's buried under all the rest! You're just doing this to annoy me."

"I don't like that colour. Therefore you get that blanket. Now take it before I change my mind."

Glaring, the Doctor tugged the blue blanket out from under the others, which fell to the floor with a quiet thump. "You are being extremely silly about this, you know," he said accusingly.

"Yes, I know. Go to sleep." The Master sat down on the bed, flipped the covers onto it with a flourish and slid down under them, pulling them over his head.

"I'm cold," the Master heard the Doctor's voice say through a layer of blankets.

"I don't care. Shut up and go to sleep."

"Hate you too," the Doctor said dryly.

The Master mumbled something incoherent, glad the blankets concealed his sudden blush. Why must he have these inconvenient feelings all the time? They got in the way of… things. He wasn't quite sure what things, but there were certainly things. He almost caught himself nodding along to this rationalization and mentally kicked himself.

_Hate you too_. But the Doctor didn't really hate him, did he? He never had, no matter how much he professed to. You don't keep saving someone you hate, even if you _are_ the Doctor and seemingly obsessed with saving _everyone_. No, the Doctor actually took an interest, for some strange reason.

An image popped into his head: before his resurrection, when he had been shot, the Doctor yelling at him to regenerate. He stared blankly at it (as much as one can "stare" at something in one's own mind) and dismissed it. He drifted off to sleep a few minutes later, the words "_Get out of the way_" ringing in his head.

When he next opened his eyes, he was somewhere else entirely.

* * *

><p>At first he doesn't think he has opened his eyes at all: he can barely see what he is doing by the faint light bouncing off the walls. He is in some sort of corridor with a vaulted ceiling. It is eerily quiet, and the only sound he can hear is water dripping a few feet away.<p>

_Plink. Plink. Plink. Plink._

He can see a bit more now. He's not sure if the light has come closer or if it's that his eyes have adjusted, but he can make out red markings on the walls—scrawled words?—and the light throws shadows in front of him.

He thinks he hears something, a shadow moves, and he starts forward two steps; then two more, slightly more controlled. He refuses to panic. It's only shadows and light and writing on stone walls.

He is no longer moving, but his footsteps still echo around the corridor. _One, two, three, four. One-two-three-four. One-two-three-four._ Although an echo should be getting quieter, this one gets louder and louder until it sounds as if there are legions of incredibly fast Cybermen after him.

He starts to run, but there is suddenly a wall in front of him. He turns, runs down a twisting corridor, all the while the noise getting louder and louder. _One-two-three-four, one-two-three-four, ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR…_

The drums are pushing him forward and he runs, but to escape from what? He slams into a wall coming around a curve, but it doesn't seem to hurt. The walls weren't that close to him before. He turns—and comes up against the other wall. The drums are telling him to run, _run_, but he has nowhere to go. The ceiling brushes up against his head, the walls press against his shoulders. He tries desperately to crawl forward, but there's suddenly a dead end. This place, it's like… like… he can't remember the name. A place like this, with corridors and danger at every turn? But then he has no more time to think because the walls are getting closer and closer. He closes his eyes in anticipation and screams as he feels the cold stone on his face—

—and wakes up, still screaming.

* * *

><p>The Master became aware of his surroundings slowly, noticing the darkness of the room and the terrible screaming that seemed to be filling it. Who was making that sound? Ah yes. He was.<p>

He stopped screaming and took deep, shuddering breaths in, shaken by how real the nightmare had felt. A familiar quiet voice came from his left. "Are you all right?" it asked.

"Fine," he choked out, still trying to convince himself that it had only been a dream. He still felt trapped, unable to catch his breath, and despite himself he started to sob.

He was still curled into a ball on his side when he felt a tentative hand on his shoulder. When he didn't flinch, the Doctor seemed to take it as permission to sit down on the side of the bed.

"Want to tell me about it?" the Doctor asked quietly, gently stroking the Master's hair. The Master thought there was something odd about that, but at the moment he didn't care as long as he knew he wasn't alone and trapped.

"I was—there was—I can't think of the word," the Master said, alarmed. It wasn't normal for _him_ of all people not to remember the word for something. "A, a place, with corridors, and the walls—" He shuddered. "They were closing in, and the drums, the drums were telling me to run—"

His eyes were tightly shut, but he could feel a soothing hand in his hair and warmth next to him. He was beginning to feel safer, like he was a child again and had had another one of his usual nightmares. But they'd never been like this, never this real.

The voice at his side was murmuring soothing platitudes. He no longer knew what they were, only that the horror of the dream had faded.

He remembered none of his dreams after that, only that he had slept more peacefully than he had in a long time.

* * *

><p>Warmth was the first thing that registered in the Master's mind when he woke the next morning. That, and a sort of feeling of peace, something entirely unusual for him. Thus, he concluded that he must be back at the Academy and that everything else had been only a nightmare. Yes, he'd had a nightmare last night, hadn't he? Something about… he couldn't remember any more. It had been dark, and he'd been running… oh, that was helpful. It described practically every nightmare anyone had ever had. He didn't have a test today, did he? That would be just perfect, with the amount of sleep he'd gotten…<p>

He opened one eye cautiously and found that he was staring at the collar of a brown duster. That's funny, he thought, mind still back on Gallifrey, I don't remember him ever owning a—

And then his brain caught up with him.

He was on Earth, in the 22nd century—or maybe the 21st. The Doctor and his silly timepiece hadn't seemed to be able to figure that out. The Doctor's TARDIS was badly damaged, and the translation circuits weren't functioning. And they had gotten a room at a hotel after bloody _ages_ of looking, and the room had only one bed.

Which he was currently sharing with the Doctor.

Who appeared to be waking up.

Blushing furiously, the Master attempted to disentangle himself from the other Time Lord, who muttered something incoherent and pulled him closer, obviously thinking he was someone else. Probably that blonde girl. The Master would have felt indignant about this had he not been more preoccupied with other things, such as the extremely awkward position of his hand on the Doctor's leg and the equally awkward position of the Doctor's hand _way too low _on the Master's back.

Oh, he really was delusional. He could have sworn he heard the Doctor mumble something that sounded like "Koschei," but obviously that hadn't happened and he was imagining things and would the Doctor just _wake up _already!

Oh good, his eyes were open. Wait, no, that wasn't a good thing!

After a few seconds of staring uncomprehendingly, the Doctor's eyes widened and he loosened his grip. The Master immediately moved his hand away as if it had been burned and manoeuvred to the other side of the bed (otherwise known as "as far away as one possibly can get from the other occupant of one's bed"), managing to accidentally give the pillow a hefty punch and untwist the sheets, which been twisted around the Doctor's legs.

Therefore, it should have come as no surprise to him when the Doctor, arms windmilling wildly, fell off the bed in a swirl of blankets, the pillow landing on his head a second later with a thump and a muffled "Ow!"

The familiarity of the situation and the way he'd been feeling a few minutes earlier made him say, quite by accident, "You all right down there, Theta?" with a long-suffering air of concern and a bit of laughter behind the words.

"Fine, just a bit bruised—hold on, what did you call me?" The Doctor stared up at him, a strange look in his eyes that the Master couldn't quite figure out.

The Master's eyes widened. He could have kicked himself. His defences were really down today, weren't they? Normally he would never have let himself say something like that.

"Nothing! I didn't say anything, that didn't mean anything—look, can we just pretend that never happened?" he said desperately, breaking eye contact and looking anywhere but at the Doctor. Damn him and his big disarming eyes—oh, Rassilon…

"Sure, whatever. Now, d'you mind helping me up? I'm a bit tangled down here," the Doctor called, a laugh in his voice.

"Find your own way out of that mess. I'm hungry," the Master said, a façade of selfishness disguising how unsettled and _awkward_ he was feeling, and swept imperiously out of the room. Or tried to. Walking into the door rather spoiled the effect. In his defence, it was a bit hard to find in the seamless metal room.

"You all right over there?" the Doctor asked, mocking him.

"THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN," the Master roared, attempting to collect his thoughts, and pushed the button to open the door. Imperiously.

The door most certainly did _not_ open into him, no matter how funny the Doctor seemed to find it. Bloody hotel. They never should have come to this stupid city in the first place.

As it turned out, he was right.

* * *

><p>Five minutes later, the Master was beginning to regret his hasty decision to storm out and look for food, since no one seemed to be able to understand even such simple words as "food," "I," "kill" and "you." Even glaring didn't seem to do much help.<p>

Ah, _finally_. The concierge seemed to understand at least a little when he mimed eating. He asked something completely incomprehensible, to which the Master nodded helplessly, only hoping he hadn't just asked for something completely different, and followed him because what else _could_ he do?

The place he was led to looked vaguely like a kitchen, with the same sleek metal walls as everywhere else and instruments that seemed like they could be automated ovens and refrigerators. A smiling woman opened the door of one of them, handed the Master a plate of something-or-other, and babbled for a few minutes about it. The Master nodded wearily and tried to pick up the whatever-it-was—

Only to have his hand slip right through it.

Glaring, he tried again, but the food was completely insubstantial and there was no way he could pick it up. A hologram?

He set it down on the counter with a crash, glaring at the woman, who was still smiling inanely. "I don't want a hologram!" he said angrily. "I want food. Okay? Something edible. Is that hard?"

The woman ignored him.

The Master attempted to translate this into Japanese and ended up with something like "Horoguramu wa, uhh, nai!" Didn't "nai" mean "wrong" or "bad" or "not" or something?

"わかりません。ホログラムじゃない。食べることですねえ？"

"No, I _can't_ bloody eat it! It's not food!"

"はい、はい、食べることです。"

"That means yes, it is, doesn't it? I've had it with you people!" Rashly, the Master slapped the woman across the face.

Or tried to.

His hand went right through her face and hit the wall with a dull thump. He stared at his hand as if there were something wrong with it. She kept telling him the hologram was food.

"Doctor!" he yelled desperately, hating how much he must sound like one of the idiot's little Earth girls, hating how he seemed to rely on the Doctor's help just as much as they did.

A moment later, the Doctor was at his side, coat swishing melodramatically, sonic screwdriver already primed.

"My hand… it went through her!" was all he could think to say.

The Doctor scanned the woman and his eyes widened. "No life signs. This is a hologram. I suppose they have a holographic cook?"

"Who makes holographic food? Why would they have a hologram if they could have androids like the concierge? Try scanning another one, Doctor," the Master said, getting a bad feeling.

The Doctor stared at him for a second, then they both ran out into the street, the Doctor pointing his sonic at random passerby.

"No life signs, any of them. _They're all holograms._"

* * *

><p>Japanese translation:<p>

アの、すみませんが、英語がわかりません。イギリス人ですか？ (Ano, sumimasen ga, eigo ga wakarimasen. Igirisujin desu ka?)—"Um, sorry, but I don't understand English. Are you from England?"

_hoteru wa dou desu ka?_—The Doctor is actually saying "_how_ is the hotel?", not "where is a hotel?" as he was intending to say.

ホテル？どのホテルですか？(Hoteru? Dono hoteru desu ka?)—"Hotel? Which hotel?"

_hoteru wa imasu ka?—_"Is there a hotel?" (Only, of course, the Doctor's used the verb supposed to be only for people and animals, not the one for inanimate objects. And the wrong particle.)

ホテル？えと、銀のホテルでしょう。(Hoteru? Eto, gin no hoteru deshou.)-"Hotel? Uh, that's probably the Silver Hotel…"

_Atashi to Shujin wa heya kudasei_—In the Doctor's fail!Japanese, this means something like "The Master and I would like a room, please" but it literally translates to something like "I (extremely feminine form) and my husband are a room, (word that would mean please if it were spelled 'kudas**a**i')." "Shujin" literally means "master" but is almost always used to refer to someone's husband. Also he's used the wrong particle and—er. I enjoy messing with languages I speak…

ああ、部屋ですか？そうですねえ。こちらへ、お願いします。(Aa, heya desu ka? Sou desu nee. Kochira he, onegai shimasu.)-"Ah, a room? I see. This way, please."

この部屋はどうですか (Kono heya wa dou desu ka?)—"How is this room?"

_ii desu_—does actually mean "it's good."

わかりません。ホログラムじゃない。食べることですねえ？(Wakarimasen. Horoguramu ja nai. Taberukoto desu nee?)—"I don't understand. It isn't a hologram. It's food, right?"

はい、はい、食べることです。(Hai, hai, taberukoto desu.)—"Yes, yes, it's food."


End file.
